ModX: how to update database without overriding content

Question

I am working on a ModX website (mainly templates but also system settings, user management, etc) while a development website is already online with the customer starting to input the content.

I haven't found a practical solution to push my work online (layouts are stored in the database) without overriding the content input by the customer (in the database as well).

My present workflow consists of first replacing my local modx_site_content table with the one extracted from the online database, then push this hybrid database online. Not practicle, plus I am not sure user changes are confined to modx_site_content only.

There must be a better workflow though! How do you handle this?

Answer 1

I don't think it gets any easier than selecting the tables you need and exporting only those into the live environment. Assuming you only work on templating, the template, snippet & chunk tables are all you need to export.

We usually take a copy, develop, and merge only once when the new features are supposed to go live this minimizes this trouble. Also the client can continue normally until d-day.

If youre doing a lot of snippet work you could always just include an actual php file instead and work with your editor directly towards those files, connect them to git and what not.

Answer 2

If you project is not really big, you can store your chunks/resources, etc. in a separate files (there is and option called "Static Resource"), and then, manage your changes with git. Otherwise, you need to store user data in a separate table and deploy the whole database with Fabric, for example.